It’s higher education strategic planning season again—that time when institutions around the country will soon release requests for proposals (RFPs) for strategic planning consultants. Many of these projects will kick off in the summer in hopes of being completed in time for board approval at the end of next academic year.
At Forvis Mazars, our higher education consulting team sees and responds to a lot of these RFPs. While most RFPs express a need for the same final deliverable—a strategic plan reached through broad consensus and mapped to key performance indicators (KPIs)—the desired processes are quite variable. Ultimately, some RFPs are more helpful than others to the vendors who will respond and, therefore, are more likely to produce quality, competitive responses.
This article will provide insight on areas to consider when you’re developing your strategic planning RFP. You might even think about the exercise of writing the RFP as a pre-planning phase, where you outline your vision for how the process should unfold and whom it should involve to produce the most strategic of plans. Hopefully, this will also save you some time by pre-empting those questions from respondents as well.
- Consultant’s Role – How will the consultant contribute to the process? Should they develop the strategy or facilitate its development? Should they lead stakeholder engagement or advise on its timing? Will the consultant present the final strategic plan to the board? Should the consultant advise on all aspects of the process, from data requests to formatting of the final document? This is an important consideration, as the skills you’re requesting from the consultant are likely steering your evaluation of responses.
- Process Leadership – Who will champion this effort internally? Will there be a steering committee? What role will that steering committee play through the process? Will it drive strategy via a competent external facilitator, or will it be asked to certify strategies developed by the consultant?
- Stakeholder Engagement – If consensus is the goal, then how will you begin to collect input? Will there be surveys, interviews, focus groups, and/or workshops? Note that surveys allow you to collect a lot of information from a lot of people, but they can feel cursory, if not passive. You will also want to think about who you consider “stakeholders”—there are quite a few different approaches on this.
- Modality – How much, and what of the process, will take place in person versus remotely? Travel and the time associated with travel are huge drivers of cost to the project. When travel needs are ambiguous, it’s not uncommon for responses to build in additional fees to cover the potential for this unknown. Being intentional about your travel needs will produce more accurate fee quotes.
- Timeline for Deliverables – Believe it or not, this is one of the most overlooked aspects of RFPs. When do you need this project complete, and how much time do you need from your consultant to accomplish everything from data analysis to stakeholder engagement, and refining your strategic initiatives with leadership?
There are plenty of other things to think about as you’re preparing your RFP, including the background and skill sets of the consultant you’d like to work with and the process you’ll use to actually achieve your plan once it’s developed.
If you are hoping to get competitive and helpful responses, the tips above can help you create a playing field with clear parameters. Forvis Mazars is here to help support you and can assist with your next RFP. Let us help you transform your strategies for a better tomorrow by contacting us today.